Watch and Save

When the soda cap says "not a winner this time" or "sorry, try again" it's saying I'm a loser. When the networks cancel creative shows that I really enjoy while leaving insipid rehashed mindless trash on the air, they too are telling me I'm some kind of loser.

Do you have a television? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE watch Arrested Development when it returns from hiatus on Monday, December 5 at 8 (7 Central) on Fox. This multi-Emmy-winning show is 30 minutes long and you are guaranteed to laugh, possibly uproariously, while watching it. It is creative and subversive and brilliantly narrated by Ron Howard. Yes, Ron Howard.

The show is about a relatively level-headed son, Michael, who is trying to keep his family and family business together. Michael has had his mishaps. For example, last season he fell for his brother's Hispanic girlfriend; the brothers overheard her admitting she was in love with "hermano", sending the brothers on a search for this "Hermano"--which means brother in Spanish. By the time Michael figured out it was him, it was too late. Michael tries hard to do the right thing, help the family out, but often ends up erring along the way and having to clean up not only his own mild messes but his family's as well. Michael's son, George Michael, is a confused teenager who got over his crush on his first cousin to fall for an extremely prim, good Christian girl, Ann, who Michael doesn't particularly care for. Michael's mother is a self absorbed alcoholic who apparently had an affair long ago with her husband's identical twin brother, resulting in youngest son Buster; in the first season she adopted another son, Annyong, who is Korean and whose name means hello in Korean. Michael's father is recently out of jail for various illegal business schemes; he has at various times hidden out from the law, his family, and responsibility of any kind. Michael's sister Lindsay is an attention-seeking rich girl with moments of clarity whose husband Tobias is a deeply-in-denial gay man who dreams of being an actor and who never ever goes nude. Their teenaged daughter Maebe despises her clueless parents and has inadvertently been hired on as a movie studio executive. Michael's brothers, Gob and Buster, are oblivous and infantile in their own ways; one is a very bad magician with a newly discovered macho son, the other is an Army-avoiding momma's boy amputee who last year ended a relationship with his mother's nemesis, played by Liza Minnelli. Yes, Liza Minnelli. All that and I've barely started to mention the guest stars: Henry Winkler as the dad's disturbingly inept lawyer, Scott Baio as the vaguely inept replacement lawyer, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as a fake-blind lawyer who then fakes a pregnancy to gain sympathy in the court room, and most recently Charlize Theron as a child-like spy who wins Michael's heart while investigating his family. And did I mention much of the family lives together in their model home (they're supposed to be real estate developers) and that Michael has been stuck driving a stair-truck ever since returning home to rescue the business? Last week's special hour-long episode featured a fight between a jet pack driven teenager and an oblivious costumed mole (spy and animal), a scared straight speech delivered to the wrong group, and a manly triathlon involving tricycles. I mean, how can anyone NOT find this show funny?

Arrested Development is my number 1 Tivo Season Pass item, that is how much I adore the show. Because the fans and critics are very loyal and communicative, Fox is being nice about possible cancellation; in fact, they haven't outright cancelled the show. Yet. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE...December 5....Monday night football isn't anywhere near this entertaining. Did I say PLEASE already?